The Strongest
by Tea's
Summary: Sakura became the strongest just for them and for this moment, but sometimes even that isn't enough. A future snapshot. [Oneshot, now in 2 standalone parts]
1. The Strongest

**Author's Note:** This ficlet was inspired by the recent Naruto chapters (305-306), but there aren't really any spoilers because it's a future fic that's completely made up from my emo imagination. Based on a confrontation between Team 7 and how events may twist when they meet up with Sasuke. I'm very new to writing Naruto fanfics, and I can only hope this can be seen as a good addition to the fandom rather than a bad one.

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**The Strongest**  
by Téa

In the end, Sakura lies unmoving on the sharp bath of rocks and blinks up at the sun. She tries to recall another time when the sky looks this majestic and clear, but she finds that she does not want to remember. She wants to stay there forever, just watching the birds fly across the sky in their carefree manner. Instead, she turns her head to the side and stares blankly into the distance.

She doesn't notice the wide, angry chasm that tore up the ground. She doesn't notice the trees that had been ripped from the roots scattered about. She doesn't even notice the large boulder crushing its weight against her legs, and she doesn't pay any attention to the fact that she can no longer feel anything in the lower part of her body.

10 feet. His dark eyes are open, staring right back at her, and Sakura thinks he's as beautiful as ever. She doesn't see that he's barely even recognizable anymore, and she doesn't see how he has a gaping hole in his chest where his heart should have been.

12 feet. His blue eyes are closed to her, and this time she sees the blood. It covers every part of his body, pouring out of the gashes that seems to keep stretching across his skin. She sees so much red that her eyes begin to water, and she thinks she's crying blood.

A terrifyingly savage scream pierces through the still air, and she wonders where it's coming from. It takes only a moment longer for her to realize that it's being forcefully wrenched out of her own lungs.

Her body shakes and someone kneels down next to her, blocking her view of red. She still sees them, the imprint digging its claws and carving itself into her. She squeezes her eyes shut, and the image stays.

It doesn't go away.

It won't go away.

Gentle murmurs coax her, but Sakura hears only three words.

It makes her wonder how it is that she became the strongest when she can crumble so easily from just hearing them.

It makes her wonder when Sasuke had become the man of her nightmares and when Naruto became bigger than the world itself.

_Sakura, they're gone._

She lies there under the glaring sun, and she doesn't understand how she became the strongest for them, and in the end, became the one who lost everything.

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At the time of posting, this is intended to be a one-shot rather than a chaptered fic. I may or may not build around it in the future- I'm not sure yet, but either way, I think it stands firmly on its own anyhow. Thank you for reading, and I hope at least some of you would be willing to hit that review button and share your thoughts on the fic with me! 

_Written On:_ May 14th, 2006 (387 Words)


	2. Paths of Deaths

**Author's Note:** Previously I had said I was keeping this as a one-shot, and the sentiment remains, really, even if this new installment is posing as a sequel of sorts. I'd like to think both parts can and do stand on their own, even while supporting each other. I imagine the timeline of this part as some few years after the first, no lesser than 2 or 3. Length-wise, it's a tad longer but still rather short... and possibly much more boring.

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**Paths of Deaths**  
by Téa

_.._

_I'm always being left behind._

_Even in death, they leave me here... a walking dead soul, belonging neither there nor here._

..

She senses his chakra signature before she hears his footsteps coming up behind her. She knows, though, it is only because he wasn't trying to mask it... knows that he is giving her time to compose herself if she needs to.

_Does she?_

Staring down at the sleek, black monument in front of her, she takes a deep breath and wonders briefly if it will release into a sigh. It doesn't, and instead, she lets the air in her lungs flow out slowly and steadily.

_No, she doesn't._

He comes up beside her then, and she smiles softly, her eyes fixed on an engraved name, the only one that means something to her here. Sasuke's name isn't on it, and she doesn't expect it to be. He had died a traitor's death, took a hero with him, and left her behind to remember it. She wasn't worth taking, and she knows it better than anyone else.

"Good morning, Sakura," he greets, one hand perpetually in his pocket and another lifting in an easy wave.

She doesn't have to look at him to know that he has his head tilted to one side and his visible eye wrinkling at the edges in a smile. His tone is cheerful, as it always is when it comes to her. She prefers it this way. It makes everything just that bit more bearable, the pretense that much easier.

"Good morning, Kakashi-sensei," she returns, quietly, casually.

He doesn't comment on her presence, and for that, she is grateful. She is aware that he comes here every morning he isn't away on a mission. Unlike her. She rarely comes, doesn't ever come, really.

She looks up, one hand raised to shield the morning glare, her eyes noting the pair of birds soaring in a wide arc some distance away. _Always a pair._ Then she catches him looking at her from the corner of her vision, and she shifts her attention back to him. He says nothing, and it is just as well.

"You're going to keep your team waiting if you stay here too long, Kakashi-sensei," she murmurs lightly.

"Ah... well," he laughs a little and rubs the back of his neck in his usual sheepish manner, "this lot is more forgiving than you ever were."

She doesn't respond to that, only giving him a ghost of a smile, and then she slides the porcelain mask over her face. He is already turning back to the monument when she bends her back slightly, her form blurring and wavering before blinking out completely from his side. She meets her new team for the first time, moments later, and imagines this is where they would've been.

Life, Sakura knows, goes on.

And sometimes, she thinks she's living their lives... breathing in the choices they have made and out the paths their deaths gave her.

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**Endnote:** I think this is truly all there's going to be. The real reason I wrote this is more for the sake of experimentation and character study that may possibly lead to a separate chaptered fic, in which case, these two installments will then also serve as the backstory. I haven't decided yet, though, whether I'm really going to write it or not.

Anyhow, thank you for reading. This one-shot (that is now a two-shot) didn't seem to garner much interest here on this site, but I just wanted to say I really appreciate those who did leave me a review for the first part.

_Written On:_ April 05th, 2007 (481 Words)


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